


Hated Silence

by Deannie



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mag7daybook Summer Stockings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord, sometimes he hated the silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hated Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [8Daenerys8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/8Daenerys8/gifts).



> For Lucre_Noin at mag7daybook, who wanted Nathan and/or Nathan/Ezra for the Summer Stockings 2014. You got both.  
> Prompts: hc_bingo—sacrifice, fic_promptly—"Magnificent Seven, Nathan, sometimes, he hated the silence."

Sometimes he hated the silence.

Back when he’d first moved out here—taken all he had and rented this little suite of rooms and bought his gear and set up as a proper healer—there’d been hated silences, too.

A family would roll into town in a beat-up wagon, victims of some accident on the trail or bandits or just some sickness that happens to people when they ain’t expecting it.

Some cowboy would get stupid and pick a fight he shouldn’t have and end up in worse shape than he’d ever have been in if he’d just kept his mouth shut.

A ranch hand would rush into town and scream for help because his boss was sicker than could be with a leg black as pitch and smelling so bad you’d like to throw up.

And they’d come running to his door, looking for someone to fix it. They’d see a black man and stop dead in their tracks and stare in silence. And when they suddenly decided that maybe burning up from fever or bleeding to death or dying of gangrene wasn’t the emergency they’d thought it was…?

Well, those silences were the worst.

Or so he’d thought until two white men with no reason to care about a black man like him took up guns and saved his life and asked him to join them. Not a thought for his race, not a question of his history. He was a good man and that was all they cared about.

And he’d grown to care about them, too, and the others, and now, silences like this were even worse. He looked at the man on the cot and sighed. He’d grown to care for them a lot. Some more than others.

Josiah had told him, not too long after he’d landed in Four Corners and fallen into friendship with the older man, that one day people wouldn’t care about what a man looked like; only what he did. Had some fool notion that one day, color’d mean so little even a black man could be the president.

Nathan still didn’t believe _that’d_ ever happen, but sitting here in his clinic, a well-respected healer and lawman, he thought maybe, _maybe_ , the world wasn’t going to stay the same forever. People could change. One by one.

Like Ezra.

 

A good old Southern boy, Ezra hadn’t seemed to see anything _but_ the color of Nathan’s skin when they first met. Later on, as they tried to get to know each other—realized they _wanted_ to get to _like_ each other—Ezra’d tried to explain away the reason he’d refused to ride with him, but the discussion ended with Ezra horrified to realize that yes, a big part of his reason was that Nathan was black. Like lots of people, Ezra’d never even known his prejudices ran so deep.

Hell, the first time he’d needed healing, Ezra’d given Nathan that same damn stupid silence he’d gotten from all those others. A beat of unspoken “why would I let a negro doctor touch me?” Of course, it was followed by a wholly unconvincing “It’s fine”—a knee jerk reaction that had nothing to do with race and everything to do with being afraid of needing somebody else’s help. Damn fool still hadn’t got out of the habit of _that_ after all this time.

Nathan had watched people walk away from him in disgust before, refusing to give in to the wisdom of just shutting up and being taken care of by the only person who could do it. He could have let Ezra’s shoulder freeze up like they sometimes did. Could’ve let him learn his lesson. He’d had people turn away before.

But for some reason, he’d reached out and jammed the shoulder back into place before Ezra could walk out. He hadn’t been gentle or subtle, and he’d fully expected to be laid out flat by the soft-looking gambler who was starting to show that he was anything but.

That Ezra pulled his punch to nothing more than a tap and gave Nathan that first, tentative grin, said a lot about the man. He had his prejudice—and so did Nathan, he’d admit to himself from time to time—but he wasn’t ruled by it.

He could change.

If the fool was able to survive his own self long enough to do it.

 

Nathan sighed and rose, heading to the door to bring in the bucket of water he’d left chilling on the balcony in the cold desert night. He wiped down Ezra’s neck and back, trying to bring the fever under control, as he had many times in the last three days. He checked the wound where the infection was only now beginning to clear, worrying that the puss and muck had made its way into places you couldn’t cleanse it from. He wondered when in hell the damn gambler was going to wake up or if he ever was.

That Ezra had taken that bullet saving Nathan’s life wasn’t a shock. Ezra had shown that he’d put his life on the line for any one of them. Wasn’t Nathan in particular, it was just the way the crazy-ass man was.

But while it was no surprise he’d done it, Nathan still wanted to tan his hide for pulling that damn stunt.

 

They’d been after a team of cattle rustlers and gotten into a gunfight with ‘em out by Parson's Creek. Wasn’t anything new, or even anything particularly troublesome—at least until Ezra saw something that none of the rest of them had: a shooter with a clear shot at Nathan’s flank. Would have been a killing shot from that angle, for sure.

Could still be.

That moment was forever burned into Nathan’s mind now. Ezra leaped toward him and jerked hard, staggering with a silent look of shock in his eyes before dropping as deadweight from the bullet half an inch from his spine and only two from his heart.

God, Nathan really did hate the silence. And the silence of Ezra lying face down and unmoving in the dirt was more than he could stand. His hands still shook at the thought of it.

He’d reared up in anger, taking Ezra’s shooter down—at the risk of getting his own head blown off—and bellowing for Josiah to help him. He hadn’t seen where the bullet went in. He only knew that he needed to get Ezra to cover.

Josiah and he had dragged him behind a stand of rocks and Josiah had turned back to the fight with a grimmer purpose, leaving the doctoring to Nathan.

He’d nearly thrown up when he saw where it had gone in. He and Josiah hadn’t been gentle, just quick. The damage a bullet could do right there, jostled like he’d been….

 

Nathan hadn’t really breathed again until Ezra woke four hours later. They’d sent JD and Buck on ahead to take in the prisoners and get a wagon while he and Josiah laid Ezra out on his stomach on a bedroll. Chris had probably stood in the background brooding while Vin stood guard, but honestly, Nathan had no time for anything but Ezra.

He’d sent Josiah foraging for winter cherry, buck brush—anything to keep it from swelling too much. He’d worked to stop the bleeding and prayed that Ezra could wiggle his fingers and toes when he came to.…

Didn’t quite work out that way.

When Ezra woke up, Nathan was boiling up a poultice by the fire. Josiah was the one with one hand on his back above the wound and one hand on his head to hold the gambler down when he tried to move. And Ezra did try, that was obvious in the strain of his neck and twitch of his shoulders.

But not in the movement of any other part of him.

“Mr. Sanchez, why are you laying hands on me this way?” Ezra had grated in a breathless voice that worried Nathan even more than the lack of movement. If Ezra’s breathing wasn’t working…

“You need to keep still, Ezra,” Josiah had said softly. “Bullet’s close to your spine.”

Ezra’s head was facing away from Nathan, but the healer heard the hidden panic all the same. “Nathan?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant but clearly worried by his absence—not just for himself, but for Nathan, too. He caught himself immediately. “I do hope our good Mr. Jackson is planning on taking care of this.”

Nathan had shaken himself from the feelings that Ezra’s concern for him brought up, and knelt where Ezra could see him, holding the boiling hot poultice.

“Can’t go after it out here, Ezra,” he said quietly. “Buck and JD’ve gone for a wagon. Once we get you home, I’ll get it out.” He took a deep breath and draped the wrap over his friend’s back, looking up at Josiah in something like despair when Ezra didn’t even flinch at the heat of it. He patted Ezra high up on the shoulder, hoping he’d at least feel that. “Gonna get you some tea, okay? Just lie there and relax.”

He stood and headed back to the fire, desperately ignoring the sharp intake of breath and shocked groan when Ezra figured out that Josiah's hand on his head wasn’t doing nothing to hold him down.

 

The tea he’d given Ezra—tea his friend had drunk without complaint—was a blend made to put a man out and keep him out. He knew now that Ezra couldn’t move on his own and cause more damage—it wasn’t that that made the tea make sense. He just couldn’t bear watching Ezra dwell on what was happening the whole way back into town.

Once Ezra was sleeping, Josiah had handed him a canteen and sat him down, and Nathan just watched Ezra breathe for a few minutes, relaxing as it became clear he was going to keep doing it.

It took a minute for him to realize that Chris was there, in his face. “He ain’t moving.”

Nathan had swallowed hard. “Could be he’s bruised up good inside. Might be fine after the bullet’s out and he has time to heal up.”

“Might be?” The words were like bullets all themselves. He didn’t need to see the glare he knew Chris was sending.

“Yeah, 'might,'” he said, looking up in defiance and seeing only concern and worry where that glare should be. He slumped down tiredly. “I can’t tell nothing out here, Chris,” he said quietly. “And I ain’t planning on risking any chance he’s got by digging around for it.”

 

Once home, with light and ether and space, he’d taken his time with getting that bullet out, thanking the Lord and his friends for the surgery kit that had been the group’s birthday present a couple of years back. It was obvious that the bullet itself hadn’t done nothing to his spine, but the swelling had already been bad out on the trail. Infection had set in quick, of course, and the swelling had only grown.

Nathan’d seen Ezra’s legs and arms twitch from time to time as the fever took him, but nothing more. He kept trying to tell himself that his friend’d move just fine once the infection was under control. Once the swelling went down.

In truth his worry was more that Ezra either wouldn’t wake up at all, or wouldn’t be the man they knew when he did. If the infection got into his spine, close as it was, his mind could be gone from meningitis before he ever opened his eyes.

Nathan listened to the damned silence and told himself Ezra’d wake up soon. He’d wake up and be himself and piss and moan like he was supposed to. He’d keep being that irritating cuss that both annoyed and fascinated him.

He told himself Ezra’s panicked call for him in the desert was because he was hurt and scared, not because he maybe cared the way Nathan himself….

Nathan shook his head and went back to cooling his friend down.

Ezra injured was not a still thing, as a rule. He rolled and rocked and tossed and turned. Fevered, he always revealed more than he wanted to and Nathan ignored the beatings and neglect and loneliness that replayed in his patient’s head with the practiced ease of a slave who had always been invisible and should therefore see nothing.

It was somehow fitting that the hell of his childhood should make him a better healer. Josiah once told him “experience reaches where teaching can't,” and Nathan figured it was true.

But in his experience, Ezra should be tossing and turning and complaining about being stuck in this “miserable excuse for a cot,” not lying there face down, still and silent and…

Hell, at least his fever dreams weren't touching him this time.

“Come on, Ezra,” he whispered softly, a gentle hand on his back. “Come on, now. You slept long enough.”

“He’ll wake when he’s ready.”

Nathan jumped at Josiah’s voice in the doorway, pulling his hand away slow enough so he didn’t look guilty. The preacher slid inside quietly and smiled at him. “Door was open. My knees are hurting so I went for a walk.”

Nathan smiled back, or tried to. “Need to pad those kneelers of yours.”

“Kneeling is a penance, my friend,” Josiah scolded. “It’s not to be comforted away.” He sat heavily in the chair on the opposite side of the bed. Nathan never sat there. He couldn’t see Ezra’s face from there. And he needed to see that something powerful, even still as it was.

“Ain’t much can comfort this away, Josiah,” he murmured, that soul-deep ache in his heart. Ezra had come to mean something to him and that in itself was a wonder. He’d never thought to even _like_ a man like him, much less feel more for him than was right….

“There’s no penance to be done, either, Nathan,” Josiah told him. “You know this wasn’t your fault.”

He did. Hurt like hell to know Ezra might not be okay because he was saving Nathan’s own life, but he knew it was never his choice to make.

“Damn fool,” he grated, wanting to be angry, but ending up sad and longing instead.

Josiah sat in silence with him for a bit, and Nathan was glad of some saner company. Chris and Vin were silent when they came, but their visits were brief and intense and consisted of staring at Ezra like their glares could wake him up. Made Nathan tired.

Buck and JD were the opposite. They talked and prattled and nervously played with their hats and then went quiet, begging without words for Nathan to proclaim that Ezra’d be just fine. He’d be awake any time now.

Those visits left him angry. Weren’t fair for him to be the one this was all expected of. He’d done what he could and all he could do now was wait in the silence with the rest of them and hope Ezra’d wake and move and be whole again and come back to them. Come back to _him_.

“Ezra, please wake up.”

He felt more than saw Josiah’s head come up at his exhausted plea.

“Nathan…”

Damn preacher always could read him like a book. Not that he was up to hiding much just now. “I ain’t gonna be sorry for how I feel, Josiah.”

“I wasn’t asking.” Another silence. “Does he know?”

Nathan snorted, thinking on one of the many reasons he’d never told Ezra how he’d come to feel for him. “You think he’d care?” They'd gotten past the color of his skin and the sound of Ezra's Southern drawl, but some things were too big to get past...

“I’d say there’s a bullet hole in the boy’s back that says he might have an inkling of what you’re feeling.”

A different, more intense, silence grew between them and Nathan tried to ignore Josiah’s expectations by rising quickly and heading for the cabinet in the corner. “Best clean out that wound again,” he muttered, praying Josiah’d take the hint. “I think the infection might be running its course.” The bottle of iodide rattled against his carbolic as his hands shook. “Maybe then the swelling’ll go down, and—“

Josiah’s hand closed on his and stilled the shaking. “It ain’t wrong to care, Nathan,” he whispered. “No matter how much.” His eyes met Nathan’s candidly, then tracked over to Ezra’s body lying frozen and alone. “Might make a difference for him to hear it.”

Nathan lowered his eyes and stared intently at the label on a jar of feverfew and when he looked up again, Josiah was gone.

"Fool preacher," he muttered angrily.

Yeah, Josiah was gone, all right—having stirred the damn pot like he always did. And Ezra was still there. Silent, still… so far away that even touching him wasn’t like reaching him.

Sighing for the pain in his heart and the stiffness of muscles long since done in by exhaustion, Nathan sat beside his friend and started stripping off the bandage he’d had laying on the unmoving back. No need nor cause to wind it round the man when moving him might make the damage worse. Ezra clearly wasn’t of a mind to jar the damn thing loose with an unwary movement.

Or any movement.

Nathan felt his anger rising again that Ezra should do this to him.

“Josiah thinks I ought to tell you what I feel,” he growled quietly, peeling the last layer back and looking at a wound that was finally turning pink with healing instead red with rot, at least on the outside. “I think you’re a damn fool,” he declared.

“I think you had no right to sacrifice yourself like that for me—I didn’t ask for it.” He soaked a cloth in carbolic solution, using it to cleanse the wound and barely noticing the almost normal twitching of Ezra’s back muscles as cold acid hit blood and flesh.

“I think I shouldn’t care for you at all, is what I think. Shouldn’t look at you and wonder how the hell a self-centered, money-grubbing con man could’ve got me so wrapped ‘round his finger that I don’t know what I’m gonna do if you die.”

His hand shook as he carefully cleared away more of the dead tissue and watched with mute approval and half-denied hope as arms and legs tried to respond to the pain of the cleaning.

“I think I care for you too damn much, Ezra,” he finally whispered, covering the wound with a clean cloth and rising to put his supplies away. “Ain’t right for you to do this to me.”

Some part of him fancied Ezra would pick right this moment to wake up. Like one of those novels where the truth brings a loved one back from the brink of death.

But of course, when he turned around, all he found was silence.

He sat down again, took hold of a hand that couldn’t feel him—yet—and resolved to wait to say anything more to the stubborn fool who’d come to mean more to him than the rest of them.

He was still waiting when morning came.

Lord, sometimes he hated the silence.

* * * * * * * *  
The End


End file.
